Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community:
The buzz of a new academic year surely signals the emergence from the languid days of summer. The temperatures might still be high, but our hopes for the coming year — and for the future of medicine — are higher.
I had the pleasure of welcoming our incoming first-year students on Monday, prior to their Society gatherings and the annual HMS patient clinic. Today, we will recognize our new medical and dental students as they celebrate their much-anticipated White Coat Day. The ceremony will run from 1:30 – 4 p.m. ET under the tent on the HMS Quadrangle, and you are invited to join via livestream.
The events of this week are exciting for our incoming students and also humbling for the many clinician-educators across the HMS and HSDM ecosystem. Our entering medical and dental students have chosen to entrust us with nurturing them toward their fullest potential. I know I speak for each of our nearly 12,000 faculty members when I say that we will strive — with all earnestness and great care — to make sure these students have the tools they need to improve human health, alleviate suffering, and change the world for the better.
As we embark on this new academic year, I want to remind the HMS Quad community of our Flexwork Initiative, which was formally launched in fall 2020. Rather than a top-down approach, we empowered unit leaders to determine a flexwork model that is most appropriate for achieving their unique objectives, with the understanding that operational excellence is still expected and community engagement is an important component of that excellence. I encourage you to refer to the Flexwork Initiative webpage for more information and resources and to speak with your manager or unit leader if you have questions about your local unit plans.
I look forward to seeing many of you this afternoon, and I hope you will plan to join me on Sept. 28 for the State of the School Address, to be followed by what I hope will be an exciting community gathering: the HMS Party on the Quad. The party promises to be a great way to reconnect with colleagues and friends, and to remind ourselves of the joy of being part of this wonderful community.
Here’s to an invigorating academic year ahead.
Sincerely,
George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University